This is a topic that came up a while back. I said I had some information

Mark E. Petersen, talk at Brigham Young University in 1954

Is there reason then why the type of birth we receive in this life is not a reflection of our WORTHINESS OR LACK OF IT in the pre-existent life?...can we account in any other of way for the birth of some of the children of God in darkest AFRICA, or in flood-ridden CHINA, or among the starving hordes of INDIA, while some of the rest of us are born here in the United States? We cannot escape the conclusion that because of performance in our pre-existence some of us are born as Chinese, some as Japanese, some as Indians, some as Negroes, some as Americans, some as Latter-day Saints. THESE ARE REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS, fully in harmony with His established policy in dealing with SINNERS AND SAINTS, rewarding all according to their deeds....

Alvin R. Dyer, The Meaning of Truth, rev. ed., p. 33

Birth into mortality is not a matter of chance occurrence or of uncalculated purpose. All is in accordance with a plan. Those who are in a lower division in the pre-mortal estate are born into this life under circumstances that best suit the opportunity to rise above that division, where the normal condition of their place has that encumbrance fitted to their own worthiness. Those who were in the less valiant division will be similarly born into mortality for the same intent of purpose. Those who were the noble ones, such as Abraham and such as all those who were born in the covenant of the patriarchal order, an order which was in the beginning and will be in the end, are consequently born into such a lineage of birth as will preserve their place which they had accepted in pre-mortality and are assigned to in mortality by foreordination. This explanation helps us to understand why there is a vast gradation of people upon the earth. Some are initially born to cursed lineages in varying degrees, such as the Negro, the Jew, and the Indian. Some are born to retarded civilizations although, as stated, within these lineages there are varying degrees.

Harold B. Lee, Decisions for Successful Living, p. 164

There is no truth more plainly taught in the Gospel than that our condition in the next world will depend upon the kind of lives we live here. "All that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." (John 5:28- 29.) Is it not just as reasonable to suppose that the conditions in which we now live have been determined by the kind of lives we lived in the pre¬existent world of spirits? That the apostles understood this principle is indicated by their question to the Master when the man who was blind from his birth was healed of his blindness, "Master, who did sin, this man or his parents that he was born blind?" (John 9:2.) Now perhaps you will have a partial answer to some of your questions as to why, if God is a just Father, that some of his children are born of an enlightened race and in a time when the Gospel is upon the earth, while others are born of a heathen parentage in a benighted, backward country; and still others are born to parents who have the mark of a black skin with which the seed of Cain were cursed and whose descendants were to be denied the rights of the priesthood of God.

Well done, Jim Huston. I am fifty three years old, and I was raised with all of that. As I was born fifth generation Mormon, my father assured me that I was valiant in the pre-existence and fully deserving of light skin.

What he didn't tell me was why he couldn't support his own family, and why I had to live in a series of garages and basements. Why did I go to school hungry when "gentile" kids had lunch money? Why was I frequently beaten and fed raw oats and cereal grains for breakfast? Why was I forbidden to join other children in activities like swimming on Sundays?

I think that white supremacy falls apart as soon as an ignorant, loser father has a thinking son. That's why the supremacist culture is evaporating, whether Mormon or not.

On the other hand, when McConkie the Bruce visited my mission and was asked these questions, he put things in the following order by level of valiance and mortal birth:

1. Jesus Christ, forordained to be the Savior2. Michael, who became Adam..... no reference to Adam/God theory3. Noble and Great Ones...... became His rulers4. Valiant ones ....... became Children of Israel (no real reference to LDS Church, more reference to Tribe of Ephraim5. Seed of Cain, becoming the Blacks (this was prior to 1978, when he repudiated that thinking)

He said that any other ranking was pure speculation. He emphasized the word speculation (not false), and made it a point of saying that Alvin Dyer was one of the chief speculators.

His point on speculation was that if anyone, including apostles and prophets, strayed from or added to the above list, we as members were not bound to accept it as it strayed from or added to the Standard Works.

My ex-mother-in-law used to tell me that her two oldest kids had the struggles they had (one divorced, one married to an inactive guy who has simultaneously has another whole family) because they were not BIC. The in-laws had gotten married, outside of the temple, during their senior year of high school and had a 7-1/2 lb. premature baby 7 months later (a story they stuck to their whole lives). They had another baby before they got to the temple to be sealed.

So those two were probably not as valiant in the pre-existence like their other three kids who were sent down after sealing and were BIC. It's been years since I've been around them so I've always wondered how she explains the struggles the other three have had later in life. I guess they were just more tempted by Satan because they were so valiant. There's an answer for everything.

It's like manipulation that people want. They might even know it's manipulation, they see the cheesiness of it, but it gives them good feelings and makes them feel special in a church that otherwise does things to make them feel bad about themselves. Then we get a cycle of addiction to the authority figure that promises us specialness even as he lashes us with the whip. Maybe it's a form of Stockholm syndrome. The abusee comes to love the abuser.

I've also heard many TBMs justify their large families because it was their responsibility to make sure that the valiant spirits could be born BIC otherwise they would have to be born to "gentile" families.But what it TBMs keep having more kids than the number of preordained BICs? Does one of the lesser spirits get lucky and get to be born Mormon instead of Hindu?

I partly disagree with these explanations about the "why" of skin color, nationality, etc. Most people wonder, at some point, why they were born into their particular circumstances. For Hindus and Buddhists, the answer is karma; their actions in a past life determined their birth in this life.

Traditional western Christianity didn't really answer the question, which gave Ole Joe a chance to put in a reason and thereby give rationality to what seems irrational. When I was TBM, I wondered what I'd done in the preexistence to be born in a nonMormon family. If I saw people living in deplorable conditions elsewhere in the world, I felt sorry for them but also "knew" they were in the place they deserved because of their own actions.

Now that I'm no longer Mo, I have no answer for why I was lucky enough to be born in reasonably free America to good parents with a chance for higher education, etc. Just trashing the LDS belief, however wrong it is, doesn't help; we need to understand why people held this belief. Part of it may be a feeling of superiority, but I really believe it's partly our need to understand how the world/life/all of it works.

I was first introduced to this when I was on my mission. I was in an apartment with three other missionaries, two BIC with pioneer ties, me and a local Brazilian. The two BIC missionaries presented these, and several more quotes and told us that is why they were superior to the two of us and always would be. We were converts, so we started out with a lower status than they did. We should not expect the same callings or recognition by Mormon leadership. I was later told the same thing by my ex-wife's family, they said marrying in would help. They had close ties to the Pratt family. My ex-wife's grandmother was a Pratt and a Grandfather was a Cache Valley Griffin.

I recognize now that Mormon leadership contains a huge amount of nepotism which explains it all to me very well.

When I was young, around 10 maybe, I said that I wanted to be a GA. My TBM father told me I couldn't because it takes 6 generations of faithful service for a family to produce a GA. He and TBM mother were pitiful converts in the late 60's.

EDIT - Mrs Truthseeker's aunt is Rosemary Wixom, and Uncle Jack Wixom has served in many SP/MP callings. Will my kids get morg credit for having strong morg ties (even pioneer ancestry, yay!) on their mother's side?

When I was a missionary, we had some GA come to our ZC to speak to us. He asked us to write doctrinal questions we had and he would answer them.

I wrote: why are so few people aware of the LDS Church if it's the one true church of God?

When he read my question, he said, "That's a stupid question. It's your job as missionaries to let people know about it. Next."

Of course, that was a complete insult and dismissed my real question: why would God make his church available to 10 million people on a planet of 6 billion, plus all the centuries when the church did exist or only existed in tiny Israel?

The LDS response is baptism for the dead, but it still doesn't make any sense that 99.9% of the people born on Earth never heard of the "true church". The GA punted on my question, leaving me even more in doubt about it.

5. ‪The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and members (for example, the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar; the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity).

Mormons take it to a new level because they maintain a caste system within their "exalted status." I guess they are just over achievers.